“Young Goodman Brown” Group Questions1.A) The old man that Brown meets on the road is really the devil. The devil appears on the road because it is a path of sin. His staff is a writhing snake that cannot be determined to be alive or not. B) The words used to describe the devil said that he is an older man about the age of Goodman Brown. Both the devil and Brown have the same general appearance. This signifies that the devil and Brown are not too far off from each other in their ways. 2.A) The staff that the devil carries represents the sins of the people. The wriggling of the staff is the peoples’ hidden sins just itching to be let loose. It is hard for the people to hide their sins all the time and it creates restlessness in them, which is shown in the mysterious movements of the staff. B) It is the staff that leads Brown onward on his journey. The mysteriousness of it pulls at the curiosity of Brown and leads him deeper into the forest. Brown wants to find what the town is hiding from society, and the staff holds part of the key. 3.A) If Brown had not ventured into the forest, he would have not found the hidden sins that surround the Puritan village and would have lived that rest of his life in question. He wanted to find what was in the dark, and did not end his forest stroll until he found the answer. However, what he found ruined the rest of his life for him. B) If Brown had stayed home with Faith, he would have remained in question of his Puritan friends. He would not have been able to fully trust anyone in the village. After Brown found the truth about his society, though, he never trusted anyone again. 4.Everything that Brown witnessed was part of a dream because after that night, everyone in the town was back to their normal self. Brown was the only one who was suspicious and seemed to be the only one that knew of all the sins that were in the Puritan society. Because of his dream, Brown saw the hidden side of the Puritans and it haunted him till...

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...﻿Jared Henderson
Professor Kobeleva
Comp II
2.18.14
Symbolic Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s YoungGoodmanBrown
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, YoungGoodmanBrown, Hawthorne displays how temptation can totally corrupt someone’s personality. The Story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, which is the location in which the Salem witch trials took place. If someone reads this story it seems the story is about a man’s walk through the forest and meets a witch, the story uses these illustrations to display human’s attraction to evil, a trait possessed by GoodmanBrown and his wife.
GoodmanBrown represents the average human. GoodmanBrown is described as young and recently married. His wife’s name is Faith, which not only is a name but symbolically represents faith. GoodmanBrown has recently followed God. He is still establishing his faith. He is still not fully committed to his faith, which interpreted from Goodman Brown’s thoughts about going on the “journey”, away from his wife Faith for the evening: “Poor little Faith!” he thought for his heart smote him. “What a wretch am I, to leave on such an errand!... Well; she’s a blessed angel on earth and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven. (305)”
After...

... April 2, 2014
Mrs. Schacht English Comp. 2
“YoungGoodmanBrown”
Shadows and Illuminations of Evil
“YoungGoodmanBrown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story filled with mystery and symbolical meaning. Shadows and Illuminations create the dramatic downfall of the main character leading him into a 360 degree transition from a normal and happy life to a bitter and angered one. YoungGoodmanBrown experiences the illuminations brought into existence by dark shadows in the woods producing an abstract scheme between the real and unreal.
Shadows are the dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface while on the other hand illuminations are bodies of light. These two terms contribute to the creation of hallucinations which are the experiences involving the apparent perception of something not present. Evil is a profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, referred as a supernatural force. Donald D. Hoffman’s allegations in his book Visual Intelligence: How We Create what We See suggests that many times our eyes betray us into thinking that something is there or that something exists in a different form when in reality it might not even be half of what our eyes perceive it to be. He...

...YoungGoodmanBrown: The Downfall of YoungGoodmanBrown
"YoungGoodmanBrown", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story that is thick
with allegory. "YoungGoodmanBrown" is a moral story which is told through the
perversion of a religious leader. In "YoungGoodmanBrown",GoodmanBrown is a
Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride in himself interfere with his
relations with the community after he meets with the devil, and causes him to
live the life of an exile in his own community.
"YoungGoodmanBrown" begins when Faith, Brown's wife, asks him not to go
on an "errand". GoodmanBrown says to his "love and (my) Faith" that "this one
night I must tarry away from thee." When he says his "love" and his "Faith", he
is talking to his wife, but he is also talking to his "faith" to God. He is
venturing into the woods to meet with the Devil, and by doing so, he leaves his
unquestionable faith in God with his wife. He resolves that he will "cling to
her skirts and follow her to Heaven." This is an example of the excessive pride
because he feels that he can sin and meet with the Devil because of this promise
that he made to himself. There is a tremendous irony...

...﻿
Analysis Of YoungGoodmanBrown
Summary
A man named GoodmanBrown says goodbye to his wife named Faith outside their house one night. Faith is wearing a pink bow on her head. She asks him to stay because she is scared to stay by herself. GoodmanBrown tells her he must go, but he will return the next morning. He tells her to go to bed early and to say her prayers so nothing bad will happen to her.
GoodmanBrown starts walking through a creepy forest, and is scared someone is behind every tree. He then meets a man who seems like he is waiting for him. The man is holding a staff with a snake carved in it. The man tries to give GoodmanBrown the staff but he refuses. GoodmanBrown is unsure if he wants to perform the deed he set out to do, and wants to return to the village. GoodmanBrown talks about how his family members are good people and that he feels bad to meet with this man. The man then says that he knew Goodman Brown's family members a long with other prominent people of the community, which still makes GoodmanBrown want to return home. All of a sudden Goody Cloyse, a religious respected women, shows up and reveals that the man is the devil and she is actually a witch on her way to a devil ceremony....

...Humanity’s Internal Struggle of Good vs. Evil in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “YoungGoodmanBrown”
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “YoungGoodmanBrown” is a story of a religious man’s journey through a forest and the inner conflict he faces when encountering a traveler who claims to be the Devil. Brown is an honest, hardworking, religious everyman that Hawthorne uses to symbolize humanity while the traveller character who appears to be the Devil represents the inheritable evil that lies within mankind. “YoungGoodmanBrown” is the story of Brown’s internal struggle in which Hawthorne uses to represent the conflict that humanity faces when trying to resist it’s own evil nature.
Brown’s experience in the forest causes him great uncertainty and doubt. Upon his first encounter with the devil he says, "Faith kept me back a while" (Hawthorne 164). Faith is a homograph in this context. Literally, he is referring to his wife but it refers to his faith in his religion holding him back as well. Brown struggles with his beliefs from very early on. Brown’s faith continues to dwindle throughout the story. Hawthorne writes, “"Faith!" shouted GoodmanBrown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the...

...Brant Bond
Cardiff
ENG 231
2/17/11
From Goodman to bad man
Christianity has had a major impact on Western civilization. The strong presence of the Christian church in Europe for several centuries shaped societies ideology way back then and even shape ours today. The church affected society socially and politically as much as it did spiritually.
People’s imaginations and fantasy’s were not separate from this Christian way of thinking. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s storyYoungGoodmanBrown (Hawthorne) you see an example of this Christian type of fantasy, although the work appears to contain a deeper message of faith, which is also a fundamental Christian value. In YoungGoodmanBrown Hawthorne depicts a young man named GoodmanBrown who leaves his wife, who is ironically named Faith, and heads into the unknown of the wilderness.
The story contains very dark imagery of demons and everything devilish, and GoodmanBrown struggles with exhaustion, fear, and anger. Hawthorne sets the stage for a downward spiral that sends GoodmanBrown straight to a Christian Hell. It is a story that serves as example of what could make a good young man turn into a wicked old fool.
This story is a detailed and very dark depiction of a major Christian fear which is to succumb to...

...of Fiction: “YoungGoodmanBrown” By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
The short story “YoungGoodmanBrown,” follows the dream of a Puritan man in Salem. In the dream, GoodmanBrown comes face to face with the devil who shows him the real evil in man. Throughout the story, GoodmanBrown is put to the test in his own faith and must try to overcome evil. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses actions, objects and people from the story as a meaning that lies outside the story itself. There are symbols in the story to help reveal the many themes to the reader.
The largest symbolic roles in the story are the characters’ names, “GoodmanBrown” and his wife “Faith”. Both of the characters' names are symbolic and resemble their personalities. GoodmanBrown truly is a man of God and resists temptation against evil. Goodmanbrown cried, “‘With Heaven above and Faith below, I will stand firm against the devil”(269). His strength of character shows how the name “Goodman” relates to his personality of himself and his faith in God. As the story begins, GoodmanBrown says goodbye to his wife, Faith, before going on his long journey.
As Hawthorne writes, “Faith as the wife [is] aptly named,” (264) gives the...

...The Downfall Of YoungGoodmanBrown
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a descendant of Puritan immigrants who dedicated his life to writing. It was through his short story "YoungGoodmanBrown" that Hawthorne uses it to explain YoungGoodman Brown's excessive pride. This excessive pride interferes with the relationship of his wife Faith and the community, which ultimately causesYoungGoodman Brown's downfall.
"YoungGoodmanBrown" sets up his journey that his wife asks him to "pr'y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in his own bed to-night" (Hawthorne 614). However, GoodmanBrown tells Faith "of all nights in the year, this one night must tarry away from thee" (614). The first sign of excessive pride is when GoodmanBrown leaves his loving wife and goes on the journey that he does not know what to expect when he told her he would "cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven" . GoodmanBrown let his wife down because of his journey. This journey led him directly to the Devil who was the first person GoodmanBrown met. GoodmanBrown did not know this man was the Devil, therefore, he followed his every lead. The Devil leads...